AI is no longer a differentiator amongst startups, it has become a default feature that most firms will need to have as one of their core capabilities. UK has never been short of AI success stories, with one of the first being Deepmind, that was acquired by Google in 2014. The Fintech wave was just getting started then, and there have been some good tales in the UK-AI-Consumer Fintech space, across various sub-clusters. Cleo, an AI assistant that helps customers manage personal finance was founded in 2015, and after two years of work was launched commercially this year. The AI assistant taps into consumers' bank accounts and helps them save money.

As mentioned in the first part of these two pieces, we talk a lot about fintech. We talk about it as though it is one thing, when in fact it is many. There are nuances to this market, which is over a decade old, that need to be fleshed out in more detail because, as with technology in general, some of this fintech is in the hype cycle, some is in the chasm, and some is coming into the mainstream as accepted. I call this the Chris Skinner Fintech Wave (loosely based on Gartner's Hype Cycle), which I didn't share in the first entry, but now that you know where I'm going, here it is: As you can see, some technologies are rising, some falling and some are now widely adopted, such as lending marketplaces. In this second part, I thought it worth discussing the remaining areas that are primarily generic technologies with a financial flavour, such as AI, machine learning, IoT and biometrics.